recap: four week vacation

Your employer has given you four weeks to do whatever you want - outside of work - and you have to take all four weeks at once. So what would you do and where would you go? 

See some gorgeous new places...

make some new friends...

and find some new favorite places...

What a great vacation it was. Two weeks on the west coast, including a beautiful wedding of two of our friends (complete with dolphins in the background - for real), followed by two weeks at home doing everything I don't normally have time to do (like go to the gym). I have a newfound love for kale (thank you, Lovely's Fifty-Fifty of Portland), determined that I need real help when it comes to packing for a vacation (we had to mail ourselves packages - twice - because we didn't have enough room in our suitcases), and decided that I would 100% love to have a job where I could bring Sprout to work with me every day (someday?).

Sidenote: I also added two states to my 50 before 50 list!

2013 holiday gift guide: shop local

one // two // three // four // five

six // seven // eight // nine

Small Business Saturday is coming soon, and this year I'm inspired to give gifts that are meaningful and support small businesses. A personalized dog bowl for my sister's new puppy, monogrammed jewelry dish for my newly married bestie, and an adorable animal print for our friends with a new bundle of joy, all supporting local artists and business ladies, are some of my top picks for this giving season.

Do you make a conscious effort to support small businesses?

wedding Wednesday: in with the new, donate the old

So you've received your new towels and sheets off of your wedding registry, and now your linen closet is stuffed. Before you throw out your used items, think about donating them. A lot of people don't know that your local animal shelter will accept these used items so that their animals have something soft to sleep on. Towels, blankets, sheets (even placemats) - they can use them all!

Not sure where to donate? Call your local animal shelter or try the Humane Society.

I met this little guy on a visit last winter to the Northeast Animal Shelter just outside of Boston. See that blanket he had at the shelter (before he went to his forever home)? Donated by someone!

BarkBox and a giveaway

I signed Sprout up for BarkBox almost 6 months ago, since I kept hearing such great things about it and thought it might be fun to get a new box of goodies each month. So far, he has loved each time I put a new box down. We even found a few new favorite things because of BarkBox, like Puptato Chips and this Planet Dog strawberry toy!

Sidenote: I really should change the name of this blog since I talk much less about fashion and decor and much more about Sprout than I originally intended.

And here's where you can enter the giveaway! I have a code for one free month of BarkBox ($29 value) to give away to one lucky reader and their pup (7/24 Note: I decided to give away 3 instead of one, since I'm feeling generous today). This giveaway is open to the US and Canada.

a Rafflecopter giveaway



I received a code for a free month to give to someone else's pup just for having a subscription. This post is not sponsored by BarkBox and, as always, includes all of my own opinions.

it's not a party until someone ends up in a cone

Is it just me or do the weekends go by faster when the weather is nice? 

What a whirlwind of a weekend! One of my closest friends asked me to be in her wedding next summer (I obviously said yes) and Sprout's birthday party/adoption party was so good that one of his friends ended up in a cone. The barnyard theme was complete with bales of hay in the backyard. I didn't get a good photo of the 4 little ones together, but here's Petunia the Pug, Rowdy (Sprout's bffl), and the birthday boy himself. Not pictured is little Morkie, who was off at the vet during this photo op.

I'm so looking forward to the rest of the summer weekends - hoping they don't go by as fast as this one did!

Sprout Saturday: Sprout's hair diary

Having a dog with hair rather than fur makes for some interesting looks (and photos), especially when it's been too long between haircuts - see Exhibit A toward the bottom of this post. 

Sometimes they cut too much on top but leave a large beard... and then Sprout thinks he looks like a professor, so he wears a bow tie.

Other times there is the "Mr. Miyagi", with too much on the sides and not enough elsewhere.

Sprout's embarrassed by this next photo, taken when his hair was far too long (and he had just woken up). Friends, this is what will happen if you have a non-shedding dog and don't take him for a haircut every 8 weeks. It's not pretty (but it's kind of cute).

In the winter Sprout likes a little more fuzz to help keep out the cold. It helps him pose for photos in the snow. This is one of my favorites.

Sprout asks you to kindly not judge him (or me) for the ridiculous photos of him. It happens.

Sprout Saturday: Welcome

I recently came across a new-to-me blog, The Semi-Designed Life, and cracked up at the "Watson Wednesday" series highlighting her dog. I'm also kind of obsessed with Decor and the Dog, another fab blog. And that, dear readers, means that you now get your very own Sprout Saturdays, where I will share ridiculousness from my dog's life. He's kind of cute, right?

Sometimes he thinks he's a model (which is great, because I ended up using this photo - edited, of course - for our Christmas cards last year).

dog-themed accessories

Every so often a product comes across my inbox and makes me laugh. And then I buy it. But seriously, how great are these pillows and sign from One Bella Casa, and this t-shirt from The Mountain. Thank you, ideeli and Fab, for making my day by highlighting these great products.

(Not going to lie- I did buy this t-shirt, mostly because it resembles Sprout- but I bought it for my nephew who is just over a year old. Sadly, you won't see me in this anytime soon.)

Sprout turns 2

Today is February 16, which means it's Sprout's 2nd birthday! And what better way to celebrate the cutest part of my life than a photo collage of some of my favorite moments of adorableness (I'm biased, what can I say)!

In his 2 years, Sprout has been featured on WomansDay.com as the cutest pet of the day and is also the image that greets you for a local dog training company, Paws Alive. He has also saved the life of a fellow canine (Jim, pictured with Sprout) while out on a casual walk. In short, he is pretty awesome.

Happy birthday, Sprout!

weekend recap with Sprout

Sprout experienced his first New England blizzard this weekend! 

Normally he loves the snow, but the 2 feet dumped in our yard over one night has made for a very difficult time finding his normal "route" on our walks. It doesn't seem like it in the photo below, but the snow is actually taller than he is.

He was quite the little trouper on Friday, riding around with me to fill up the gas tank in the car and get some last-minute essentials like bread and matches. 

Since getting the snow, Sprout has opted to spend most of the weekend indoors, playing and taking frequent naps. Romping in the snow is tiring!

on using Petfinder to adopt Sprout

With Sprout's second birthday coming up next week, I thought I'd dedicate a few posts to the little fuzz ball who stole my heart. Today, I'm talking about what we went through to find the little guy. Petfinder.com can be a bit more difficult than you think.

T and I talked about getting a dog and decided that if we found the "right" dog, we would both be 100% on board. Both of us grew up with dogs and love animals, so it was not a difficult thing to agree on, especially with our new house, complete with a sizable (and partially fenced) backyard. I made it practically a part-time job to check animal listings on Petfinder.com, where I had heard quite a few success stories of adoptions.

Having grown up with a well-bred Bichon Frise, who was allergic to everything (including cats and certain types of grass) and therefore cost my parents a lot of money, I was not opposed to finding a lovable mutt from a shelter rather than going the breeder route. My requirements were not extreme: I wanted the dog to be less of a shedder (so not a dog that you could touch and have hair fall all over you) and somewhere around 30lbs. We did have to be a bit picky on personality though, because we knew our hypothetical pet would have to get along with both other dogs and children.

But application after application went in and I constantly heard back that the dog was already adopted, an adoption was pending, or we lived too far away. I started to get frustrated with the process. How was I supposed to adopt an animal in need if there were no animals to adopt?

I talked to a few breeders, thinking maybe we would go with a breeder instead of a shelter, but they wanted a lot of money for a puppy, there was no option for a slightly older dog, and those ASPCA commercials (Sarah MacLachlan, anyone?) made me feel guilty.

Eventually we found Maggie, a sweet-looking dark-haired mix who was under a year old and living in New Hampshire with a foster, a short road trip from our home. We were approved for her and had the home visit- where representatives, usually prior adopters, come to your home to make sure you actually have the space you say you do- and made the drive to see the little girl. She was so sweet, but bigger than I had anticipated, and she jumped- a lot. But still, I was ready to start shopping for her accessories as we drove home to talk about it. After a day or so, I realized that the combination of Maggie's jumping and her shedding were outside of our comfort zone, and our search continued.

And then one day I saw that a rescue group in Connecticut had 3 puppies and their mother, all available for adoption. There was a video with the puppies' descriptions, and Winter, Sprout, and Cookie (the pups) were adorable. One of the puppies (pointed out in the video as Sprout) picked up a stick and then tripped over it, and I was in love. Sprout was described in his Petfinder.com write-up: "Sprout bounces when he walks and tries to bounce into your lap.  They are all lap pups who love to romp and play." 

Here is Sprout's 5-week old photo, taken at his foster's home.

Emails turned into an application and then reference checks, first with my childhood dog's vet and then with my best friend, T's brother-in-law, and others. Because we didn't already have a dog in the home, I was told that we probably would not be chosen for one of these puppies. But eventually (and not without tears, more emails, and lots of anticipation) we were, and we made arrangements for Sprout to be flown from Texas to Boston, where we would pick him up at the airport. I was so excited to meet him, and nervous that the first meeting would be when we were bringing him home.

Sprout at 12 weeks old, taken at his foster's home.

It sounds dramatic, but picking him up was an extremely memorable moment. We arrived at the cargo area of the airport and were taken into a huge warehouse, where there was a small crate on the floor, nothing else around it. The warehouse operator closed the massive garage door so that we could open the crate, and out peeked Sprout, a small, fluffy, timid pup. We took him out to a grassy area so we could get acquainted, and we took these first "family photos".

Sprout cared to explore more than he wanted to get to know me.

But he and T were best friends from the start.

This is one of my all-time favorite photos.

At home, exploring the backyard from a safe spot in the kitchen.

I found using Petfinder.com to be a time-consuming process, and it could be frustrating (expected, due to the nature of what I was using it for!), but in the end, it was all worth it. I'm glad that the shelters put so much time and energy into adopting out their available animals to the right homes. Would I do it again? Yes, of course!

Check back next week for more!

Christmas recap

image via

It was a fun-filled and busy Christmas for us this year, but worth every minute to watch 1 year old Des smile at all of the ladies in church and to spend time with my sisters together, something we don't get to do enough now that the youngest lives in NYC. There was also the annual Christmas dinner last weekend with my high school girlfriends, 5 of us who have been the best of friends even though we are now spread between the East and West coasts. I'm hoping Mary blogs some of our classy photos from the annual photo shoot we do - necessary to have yearly photos, since she is a professional photographer and all.

I didn't take nearly enough photos on Christmas, but here are 2 that make me happy.

1. The day started at our house with a very happy puppy and his new chew toys...

2. And one of my favorite gifts that I gave this year, a custom tote from Vistaprint for grocery shopping in NYC, full of other goodies, for the Chanel-loving Amanda.

The next few weeks will be full of fun things while I have some time off from school. And then it's back to the rat race!

food drive & pet food drive

It's been an incredibly busy few weeks, but some very good things have happened. A coworker and I coordinated a company-wide food drive to benefit two big charities in the area- the Greater Boston Food Bank and the Northeast Animal Shelter. We ended up collecting about 7,000 lbs of food, plus 2,000 lbs of pet food and other items.

This is what one team's collection area looked like.

We had some help (let's be honest, we work in marketing and are not that strong) getting everything to the loading dock for the food bank to pick up. Here's some of the pile, waiting for pickup.

And the next day we had a group of coworkers help us move everything to the loading dock to take to the animal shelter. We weren't expecting as much as we got, so we were responsible for hauling it there, 30 minutes from the office.

Luckily, a coworker's friend owns New England Country Rentals (rental items for weddings and events) and graciously sent one of their box trucks and 2 men to help us out. In half an hour we had everything packed up in the truck and on its way. Once we got to the animal shelter, this was the scene as volunteers ran out to help us unload in the rain, ecstatic about the "Christmas miracle".

We spent some time with the animals, learning about how the shelter works and seeing the facility. It is by far the cleanest, most well-organized facility I've seen. The dogs are taken out for a walk about every two hours on an average day by the many volunteers who work there. 

This little girl is a lab mix but 100% thinks she's a lap dog and just wanted to be scratched, which I happily took on while her friends bounced around her.

This 3 month old named Haas has the biggest paws I have ever seen on a little guy. He and I spent some quality time together inside his little area, and he was so sweet (aside from wanting to eat my leather boots).

And little Andy here, a 1 year old Schnauzer mix, had his picture taken quite a few times by yours truly. I then sent these photos to T and asked if he could be Sprout's little brother, but we ultimately decided that we won't be getting a second dog anytime soon. That said, Andy had quite a few families checking him out that day. Hopefully all of these guys, and the others at the shelter, will make their way to their forever homes soon.

At the end of the day, I came home to my little Sprout and we snuggled up on the couch together. 

I'm thankful for the generosity of my coworkers and the ability to help families and pets in need during the holiday season. Animals have a special place in my heart, and I'm so glad that we were able to help NEAS, which is one of the largest no-kill animal shelters in New England. Definitely check them out if you are thinking about adopting, or even if you can foster a dog for a weekend to help them get to know the animal better!

pet favorites

I've written about my little guy before, so it shouldn't be a surprise that I love having a dog. I tend to put a fair amount of my budget on the fuzzy face that greets me every morning because he deserves it.

Aside from the obvious food, vet care, and bags upon bags of treats, there are things I splurge on so my little guy is always comfortable, whether we're in the living room or away for a weekend.

a bowl for on-the-go (this one from Wildebeest, available on Gilt Groupe)  // stylish neckwear, like this recycled-material collar from Found My Animal // a snuggly bed (or one for each room) // his favorite toy - these Martha Stewart guys are basically indestructible // a cozy throw for naps on the couch